Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is adamant he won't take lectures on border management from Kevin Rudd.
The former prime minister, who says he's kept quiet on domestic policy issues for the past three years, has slammed the federal government's proposed lifetime ban on boat-travelling refugees from ever entering Australia even as tourists or on business.
"This measure is about the politics of symbols, designed to throw red meat at the right, including the Hansonite insurgency, and to grovel to the broad politics of xenophobia," Mr Rudd wrote in an opinion piece published by Fairfax Media on Wednesday.
Mr Rudd described the coalition's plan as "legislative folly" and "without any policy merit".
He argued a 2013 deal he struck with Papua New Guinea to process refugees on Manus Island was only meant to run for a year.
Mr Dutton has angrily hit back at Mr Rudd's commentary.
"We are not going to take advice from Kevin Rudd, who, from the lofty heights of his apartment in New York, somehow wants to give us a lecture on how to control Australia's borders," he told reporters in Canberra.
Labor will receive draft legislation and a briefing on the lifetime visa ban next Monday.
Mr Dutton wants it passed by year's end and challenged Labor not to "shove it off to some committee so that they don't have to make a decision".
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale said it was startling how politicians often found their conscience once they left office.
"The hide of the man to give a lecture about being more decent and compassionate towards refugees when Kevin Rudd went further than even the coalition," he said.
Mr Shorten described Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's visa ban a "thought-bubble" and ridiculous overreach.
"He wants to look tough on refugees. He's trying appease the right wing of his party and some of the more extreme right-wing views in the Senate," he said, echoing Mr Rudd.
